For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Psalm 42

1 As the deer pants for streams of water,
    so my soul pants for you, my God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
    When can I go and meet with God?
3 My tears have been my food
    day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
    ‘Where is your God?’
4 These things I remember
    as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of God
    under the protection of the Mighty One
with shouts of joy and praise
    among the festive throng.

5 Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Saviour and my God.

6 My soul is downcast within me;
    therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan,
    the heights of Hermon – from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep
    in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
    have swept over me.

8 By day the Lord directs his love,
    at night his song is with me –
    a prayer to the God of my life.

9 I say to God my Rock,
    ‘Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
    oppressed by the enemy?’
10 My bones suffer mortal agony
    as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
    ‘Where is your God?’

11 Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Saviour and my God.

A. Find Out:

1. What is the Psalmist’s yearning? v.2
2. With what were men taunting him? v.3,10
3. On what can he look back? v.4
4. What was he now feeling? v.5a,11a
5. What is behind that feeling? v.9a
6. What is his remedy to himself? v.5b,c, 11b

B. Think:

1. How can the past sometimes seem to “mock” the present?
2. Where does the Psalmist feel he is in relation to God?
3. But what is his desire?

C. Comment:

    There are times when the Lord seems very far away. When that happens we can feel downcast and alone, when we feel as if the Lord has departed us and forgotten us. It is at such times that the words of the enemy seem particularly barbed: where is your God? Why doesn’t He do something?

     Such times as this are especially difficult if you have known times of great joy and blessing, as the Psalmist had done (v.4). For the person who has known much blessing, the absence of it is especially hard, and such times DO come!

     But there are important things to see here. First of all consider that many people simply aren’t bothered at all by the absence of the Lord. That there is a concern, an anguish, a yearning, is a good thing. It shows there IS spiritual life there, which knows there is something better, and wants it! Second, observe the Psalmist’s way of dealing with this feeling: he speaks words of faith to himself. Hope in God, I will yet praise Him. i.e. this will end, I will come through eventually to a place of knowing Him and praising Him again. Christian maturity is often seen by “hanging in” when it isn’t all glory!

D. Application?

1. When the Lord doesn’t seem near and I AM concerned, that is a good sign!
2. I need to speak words of faith to myself!